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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Steps to Salvation. 

A COMPENDIUM OF ESSENTIAL 
DOCTRINES. 



<f A by 

A. A. JOHNSON, A. M., D. D., 

Pastor St. James Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Denver, Colo. 



FOREWORD 

BY 

HENRY AUGUSTUS BUCHTEL, D. D., 
Chancellor University of Denver. 

»«•«*•»• ,/ , O » ■> 

• • * 1 - - « 1 

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CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE. 
NEW YORK: EATON <fe MAINS. 



I* M0t 2 



THE LIBRARY OF 
©ONGRESS, 

Two CoMEa Received 

NOV. 4 1901 

Copyright entrv 
CLASS Ct^KXc. No, 

copy a 






COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY 
JENNINGS & PYB. 



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• . * * . » -* 



FOKEWOKD. 

Dr. Johnson has had wide experience 
in presenting truth to men. As pastor, as 
presiding elder, as university president in 
Texas and in Wyoming, and now as pastor 
again, he has acquired the power to see 
truth from many standpoints. 

So, in his thought, only the fundamentals 
are fundamental. Indifference to these 
foundation truths of the Christian system 
is indifference to the program of God in 
the earth. Interest in these truths reveals 
a power to grasp the common-sensible in 
religion. 

The great revival which God is waiting 

to send to his Church must come from the 

right adjustment of ourselves to God and 

his program in the earth. Truth, which 

3 



4 Foreword. 

he has woven into the warp and woof of 
the entire Bible, must stand in our thought 
as essential. These nine foundation-truths 
are the real essentials: That God is our 
Father; that all men are brothers; that 
sin is not only a dreadful, but a deadly fact; 
that the Bible is inspired as no other litera- 
ture in the world is inspired; that Christ 
is the Redeemer of man; that Christ has a 
definite mission to man ; that there are clear 
steps into the new life ; that the Holy Ghost 
is the fire of God to consume sin and purify 
the heart ; and that the soul's vision of God 
is an intense and a most glorious reality. 

The fads of religion in our time are both 
numerous and harmful. Fads come usually 
in an age of comfort and leisure. St. 
Paul's method in dealing with fads was to 
say nothing about them, but to preach the 
truth. So, when we preach the truth with 
large intelligence and with Christ's mo- 



Foreword. 5 

tives, we render the best possible service 
to men and women who have come under 
the spell of the religions fads of our time. 
This booklet is a compendium of essential 
truth. It shows the way into the blessed 
life of conscious salvation. 

Henry A. Buchtel. 

University Hall, 

University Park, Col. , June 1, 1901, 



In things essential, unity ; 

In things non-essential, liberty; 

In all things, charity.' ' 

—Augustine. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Foreword, - -------- 3 

I. 

Introduction, ---------11 

II. 
Fatherhood of God, 18 

III. 
Brotherhood op Man, - - - - - 30 

IV. 
The Fact op Sin, 41 

V. 

The Inspiration op the Bible, - 50 

VI. 

The Redemptive Powers op Christ, 62 

9 



10 Contents. 

VII. 

PAGE 

The Mission of Christ, 69 

VIII. 
The Steps of Acceptance, ----- 75 

IX. 
The Holy Fire, 99 

X. 

The Soul's Vision — Experience, - - - 108 



Steps to Salvation. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Jesus Christ said, in advocacy and de- 
fense of his system of truth and human re- 
demption: "And ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free. If, 
therefore, the Son shall make you free, ye 
shall be free indeed." Such words are the 
confident testimony of the Redeemer as to 
the deliverance and spiritual freedom his 
gospel gives to sinful men. It is also a 
statement that, knowing the truth, with its 
beneficent results, is a progressive action. 
The steps taken in knowing the truth are, 
therefore, steps to salvation, to be taken by 

every individual who comes to the perfect 

11 



12 Steps to Salvation. 

manhood of a redeemed and abundant life. 
For "the path of the just is as the shining 
light, that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day. ' ' Knowledge, even in spiritual 
experiences, as in all educational methods, 
is always relative and progressive. 

Men may well ask with Pilate, when face 
to face with the Christ and Teacher of the 
ages, "What is truth?" In answering this 
great and far-reaching question, men are 
limited by the subject under investigation. 
While there is essential unity in truth 
everywhere by proper relations, the answer 
and definition in one realm of thought and 
action will scarcely meet the demand in 
other departments of life and investigation. 

In the ethical field of moral obligations 
and spiritual life, the essential doctrines of 
Christianity are the truth, and the neces- 
sary steps to salvation, and companionship 
with God. Accepting these doctrines, and 



Introduction. 13 

taking the progressive steps of truth by 
obedience and soul-surrender to the will of 
God, constitute the Christian life. Such 
volitional action results, by Divine grace, 
in rich personal experience, the freedom of 
a new life, and the purest liberty men en- 
joy. This book attempts to set forth these 
essential doctrines as the necessary truths 
and steps to be accepted and taken by all 
who would rise above the sin and doubt of 
this age. It seeks to point out the road to 
that dominion of spiritual character and 
power of the "abundant life." 

The theme is pregnant with facts and 
truth which, if brought to maturity of ex- 
pression and fully stated, would fill a vol- 
ume of five hundred pages. In fact, a 
complete treatise on theology might well 
be written on the title, "Steps to Salvation." 
For true theology, whatever may have been 
the polemic philosophical discussions of the 



14 Steps to Salvation. 

past, seeks to enlighten men as to the true 
nature of God, human relations, and eternal 
spiritual life. However extended the dis- 
cussion, it will be found that Christianity 
is a principle, a spiritual kingdom, a realm 
of inner life, far removed from anything 
material, formal, or of a professional nature 
in obedience to human creeds. Christian- 
ity is the true relation of human life in 
God's education of his sons. Paul compre- 
hended the fullness of the essential truths 
and steps when he said: "The kingdom of 
God is not meat and drink; but righteous- 
ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
For he that in these things serveth Christ 
is acceptable to God and approved of men." 
As basal to this rich and full experience, 
in the brief space allotted to this little book, 
the writer can only suggest, in outline, nine 
necessary steps to salvation, which, in his 
judgment, are the essentials of a redeemed 



Introduction. 15 

life, and around which, in a fuller state- 
ment, may be grouped the minor facts 
which always abide as the corollaries of the 
major truths. They are interesting and 
profitable to comprehend, but not neces- 
sary steps, as they are largely related to the 
non-essentials, in which men enjoy the larg- 
est liberty of thought and belief. 

It may be difficult to avoid by-paths and 
digressions, but the writer attempts to keep 
in the straight road that runs through 
God's revelation, and endeavors to take the 
reader from mountain-peak to mountain- 
peak of great truths, that he may see all 
that is in the valleys below, perhaps 
equally essential in the valley, but of minor 
importance if the great essential truths are 
grouped into a system of doctrines from 
the mountain-tops. Thus, when the way 
has been discovered, by the beacon-light of 
experience we may explore the valleys 



16 Steps to Salvation. 

without the uncertainty and obscurity 
which sometimes dims the vision of the 
mental searcher after great fundamental 
truths. By this method true relations are 
discovered, and the Divine order becomes 
clear and consistent in God's moral govern- 
ment. 

The method of statement pursued as to 
order and time of great doctrines is not 
that found in revelation itself, starting at 
Genesis and ending with St. John's vision 
on Patmos. This treatise is not on the 
chronology of great truths as seen in the 
evolution of God's educational methods for 
the race, but on the essential doctrines, as 
steps to present-day salvation, as seen in a 
completed revelation and system of grace, 
attested by the experience of men, and also 
realized in their characters and conduct as 
the sons of God. If men will take the 
steps of mental assent, as well as the ccn- 



Introduction. 17 

sent of their wills, and exercise tlie faith 
faculty of their natures — as truly a faculty 
of human nature as that of the intellect 
and emotions — they will come to a knowl- 
edge of the Son of God, "whom to know 
aright is eternal life." 

That which removes the dust and soot 
from the windows of the soul's vision is 
self -surrender to the will and truth of God. 
Christ said in defense of his truth and doc- 
trine (E. V.): "If any man willeth to do 
his will, he shall know of the teaching. 
Whether it be of God, or whether I speak 
from myself." This knowledge of obe- 
dience and soul-vision is the essence of 
spiritual life. May every reader, with a 
teachable spirit, take the steps, and be satis- 
fied with the conscious knowledge of re- 
demption and Divine sonship. Thus, salva- 
tion is friendship with God, and keeping 

step with the Father. 
2 



FATHEKHOOD OF GOD. 

The sinner, like the violator of civil law, 
dislikes the restraint of moral law which 
guarantees him safety and liberty. The 
criminal is usally against the Government, 
and an anarchist in spirit. 

With this spirit, he is rebellions in con- 
duct, and feels that good government is 
unjust and his enemy. Such a man puts 
in jeopardy his own highest interests, and 
endangers the foundations of society and 
civil government. 

Such is the moral attitude of many indi- 
viduals toward God. They lose sight of 
his love and wisdom as a Father, and re- 
gard the restraint of his moral laws, with 
their inherent penalties, as the act of a 

sovereign tyrant. Deep in their souls is 

18 



Fatherhood of God. 19 

rebellion and disobedience. This attitude 
is sin. It shuts the windows of the soul. 
No tender light of love shines in their 
spirits. For prudential reasons they may 
conform to social and civil requirements 
outwardly until their fellow-men regard 
them as respectable. But deep down in 
their souls they hate God, have no friend- 
ship for his ways, and are often bitter in 
spirit over the discipline of God's provi- 
dences. The Cain spirit rules their con- 
duct; life is a sad and bitter drudgery, and 
the end a fearful destiny. 

There is everything, as regards salvation, 
in the view-point of the soul. God is found 
in his Fatherhood only by those who in- 
quire after him with a teachable spirit. 
To all such he answers with love's revela- 
tions. They are more than the intellect 
can ever discover, and are found to be most 
reasonable in the practical conduct of life. 



20 Steps to Salvation. 

The essential step, therefore, to salvation is 
to acknowledge God as the Father of our 
spirits, the Creator of the world for his 
children's benefits, and the Fountain of all 
mercies/ the constant Giver of life that his 
sons and daughters may attain dominion in 
the world, and the power of an endless life. 
The Father's attitude towards all his chil- 
dren is one of love. But always from the 
standpoint of infinite wisdom, supreme in- 
telligence, and unselfish devotion to moral 
government. He knows best, and knows, 
as no child can know, until life's education 
is complete, what experiences and tests will 
bring the greatest results in character. To 
be obedient children and appreciate the 
gifts of a Father's love, is to delight God's 
heart, and open to us all the treasures and 
powers of sonship. 

To fear, fight, and hate God is the act 
of a criminal, and shows the black sin of 



Fatherhood of God. 21 

ingratitude and rebellion. It isolates every 
soul from God, and leaves it under the con- 
trol of Satan. To break this thralldom, 
God must be recognized as a Father. The 
prodigal will find a welcome when he sin- 
cerely starts towards his Father's house in 
the spirit of confession and obedience; and 
a reconciliation, with its gifts of restoration 
and companionship, will take place. 

It is not necessary that we discuss the 
evidences of God's Fatherhood. It is 
enough to say that the Bible, read in the 
light of His Fatherhood, has new meaning, 
and becomes radiant with Divine love and 
patience, as God holds on to his educational 
methods of redeeming a fallen race. Grace 
and mercy, governed by justice and love, 
conduct the school of life, until his Father- 
hood is seen and felt in the face and heart 
of Jesus Christ his Son. The supreme ob- 
ject of Christ, with all its inherent benefits 



22 Steps to Salvation. 

to man, was to reveal the Father and to take 
the Cain spirit out of his fallen children. 
The Fatherhood of God puts new meaning 
into human life, interprets the material 
world about us, makes science divine, and 
lifts men above the creatures that crawl in 
the dust to a sonship and heirship above 
that of angels. 

The first great essential doctrine of Chris- 
tianity, and basal to all others, is the Fa- 
therhood of God. It took God a long time, 
because of men's obtuseness, to get the idea 
of his Fatherhood into the minds of his 
children; and even then it was not fully 
realized until they felt his heart and saw 
his face in Jesus, the Messiah of the Jews, 
and the Christos of the Gentiles. 

1. The first human idea of God, as seen 
from his creative acts and revealed in the 
manifestations of nature, was that of force 
and power; and therefore God was feared 



Fatherhood of God. 23 

when his voice was heard in the thunder- 
clouds and his power seen in the disturb- 
ances of nature. 

All heathen idolatry and worship of the 
expressions of nature is the outgrowth of 
this idea. Men sought, in their ignorance 
of God, to thwart what they felt to be his 
displeasure, and propitiate an unknown 
force whose grip they dreaded. Thus all 
idolatry is based on human needs because 
of man's weaknesses and misconceptions of 
God. 

2. When family life developed into civil 
society, and nomadic habits gave place to 
fixed places of abode, government origi- 
nated, based upon force and physical power. 
Thus law, as first comprehended, was the 
will of a sovereign, often cold, heartless, 
highly selfish, and based upon the personal 
ends of the ruler. Now men have been, 
and are, so dependent on their environment, 



24 Steps to Salvation. 

as view-points of thought, that it was quite 
natural for them to transfer this idea of 
king and sovereignty, as seen in human gov- 
ernments, to God as Ruler of nature and 
men. 

It is true that God tried to teach the chil- 
dren of Israel differently in the moral, cere- 
monial, and civil laws revealed through 
Moses; that he tried to make them under- 
stand that love was underneath it all, and 
that the Ten Commandments were simply 
intended to keep them from injuring them- 
selves and hurting others. But they did not 
fully realize the message of Fatherly inter- 
est, chafed under the restraints, and were 
turned away from the brotherly rule of 
elders, yielded to their environment, and 
made Saul, a head taller than any one else, 
and physical brute, as he afterward ap- 
peared to be, king, and enthroned physical 
power and selfishness as sovereign. Though 



Fatherhood of God. 25 

God overshadowed them with tender provi- 
dences, both in their individual and national 
life, as a righteous Father, they never could 
get away from the idea of sovereignty, king- 
ship, glory, and the power of tyranny as 
seen in the later Egyptian, Babylonian, and 
Assyrian Empires. 

With the evolution of ancient civilization 
and government this idea that God was a 
Sovereign, enthroned behind natural law, 
self-centered, and wrapped up in his own 
individuality, grew and became in time the 
core of Calvinistic theology. Its early chief 
characteristic was that God ruled by his 
own sovereign will, expressed in natural 
law and moral requirements; that he was 
far removed from the children of men, and 
absorbed in his own infinite perfections 
which all were to admire as acknowledging 
and enhancing his glory. Men were under 
obligation to fear and obey him because of 



26 Steps to Salvation. 

his inexorable laws, and the heartlessness 
of his retributive justice. This govern- 
mental idea of God became a philosophical 
conception; and all Calvinistic theology is 
but an effort to square the revelation of God 
in the Scriptures with this preconceived 
philosophical conception of God's sover- 
eignty. 

Now r there is a sovereignty of God, but 
it is not the one thus portrayed, and which 
has caused more souls to revolt against the 
Divine will and go over into atheism than 
any other dogma ever promulgated. 

3. The correct idea of God, the one 
everywhere revealed in his Holy Book, is 
that of a Father. "Our Father who art in 
heaven" Jesus taught us to say; and his 
sovereignty is that of a loving father in a 
well-regulated family whose will is law, 
based on love. 

Under this conception of the Fatherhood 



Fatherhood of God. 27 

of God is found his laws as to the training 
and growth of his children by an educa- 
tional system of truth, and the moral re- 
quirements of love. And how beautifully 
and inspiringly this idea of God's nature 
coincides with his expressions of truth as 
seen in nature and love-inspired civil gov- 
ernments which stand for the welfare of 
the masses! 

Of course, under such moral government 
there is chastisement and correction, but it 
is the discipline of fatherly love. Paul en- 
forces this when he says: "Furthermore we 
have had fathers of our flesh which cor- 
rected us, and we gave them reverence. 
Shall we not much rather be in subjection 
unto the Father of our spirits and live? 
For they verily for a few days chastened 
us after their own pleasure ; but he for our 
profit, that we might be partakers of his 
holiness." And Paul adds that this pro- 



28 Steps to Salvation. 

cess of love "yieldeth the peaceable fruits 
of righteousness to them that are exercised 
thereby. " 

This idea of the Fatherhood of God does 
not weaken the terrors of moral law. It 
rather enhances and emphasizes the bitter 
results of disobedience, for there is punish- 
ment now and hereafter; but it is self-in- 
flicted under free moral agency. Love still 
reigns by righteousness and justice in the 
home, though the prodigal son throws off 
the restraints of moral law and plunges into 
transgressions, perhaps never to return, but 
to suffer his own chosen misfortunes. 

"While such results must follow to pre- 
serve the integrity and shelter of a home 
for obedient children, God's heart aches be- 
cause of the sins of his prodigal sons; and 
his tender mercies and forgiving nature go 
out for the moral return of all his erring 
sons and daughters. 



Fatherhood of God. 29 

God's constant Fatherly invitation is: 
"Let the wicked forsake his way and the un- 
righteous man his thoughts, and let him 
return unto the Lord, and he will have 
mercy upon him, and to our God, for he 
will abundantly pardon." 

In Dr. Van Dyke's "Gospel for the Age 
of Doubt" is the significant and forcible 
sentence: "God's sovereignty on earth is 
militant, in order that it may triumph, . . . 
not by bare force, as gravitation triumphs 
over stones; but by holy love, as fatherly 
wisdom and affection triumph over the re- 
luctance and rebellion of wayward chil- 
dren." 



BEOTHEEHOOD OF MAN. 

When God looked down on the first sons 
of Adam, beheld the worship of Cain and 
Abel, and saw the results of their spirits 
and disagreements, he faced a great prob- 
lem. The Brotherhood of Man was de- 
stroyed. Sin had set up its throne of self- 
ishness, sorrow, and oppression in the world. 
The "Cain spirit" must be overcome and 
eradicated, or else all was lost in the chaos 
of spiritual ruin and human selfishness. 
This problem taxed the uttermost resources 
of Divine love, and sorely grieved the 
Father's heart. That his children should 
become enemies, live to enslave, oppress, 
and destroy each other on the altar of their 
lusts and ambitions, was not only contrary 
to the Divine plan of human fellowship and 
co-operation, but was the high-water mark 

30 



Brotherhood of Man. 31 

of the ravages of sin. There is no more 
expressive fact of sin than the disagree- 
ments, strife, and cruelty that exist among 
men. It is carried into all relations of life; 
and no sphere of human action is free from 
the blight of hatred and selfishness. This 
"Cain spirit'' is an eye for an eye, a tooth 
for a tooth, and reprisals everywhere in self- 
vindication of power and greed. Its basis 
is an evil and ruined heart, where sin and 
lust reign supreme. This spirit keeps more 
men and women out of Christ's kingdom of 
peace and righteousness than any other be- 
setting sin. They may be willing to give 
up all forms of vice and evil habits, because 
of well-known results and scientifically- 
established facts of sin; but to love their 
enemies, to forgive and hand over venge- 
ance to Him to whom it belongs, is the 
hard and difficult task. Here human self- 
sufficiency rebels, and perversity of will 



32 Steps to Saltation. 

shuts the Christ-spirit out' of their hearts 
and lives. 

No individual can expect salvation, or 
even retain his experience of redemption, 
who does not take this wider and higher 
view of life. 

He must, as an important step, approach 
God from the view-point of his Divine 
Fatherhood, and in the light of the human 
brotherhood of love and sonship. Not to 
do so is to thwart grace and mercy at the 
very threshold of a new life and spirit. If 
there is no surrender here of the will and 
self-sufficient spirit, there can be none fur- 
ther on in the King's highway of holiness, 
where "the new birth" and the cleansing 
of the Holy Fire takes place. This is the 
crucial and important step. To forgive, 
that we may be forgiven, forever abides in 
the divine philosophy of redemption. 
There is no other way. It is straight, sim- 



Brotherhood of Man. 33 

pie, and narrow; but glorious and far- 
reaching in its effects of human preparation 
for the joy of full salvation. 

To restore the Brotherhood of Man was 
the second great object of divine revelation. 
As we see clearly to-day this could only be 
successfully accomplished through the ac- 
ceptance of God's Fatherhood. 

God must be seen and regarded as a 
Father before men could realize that they 
were brothers. These ties of relationship 
were inherent in both the Divine and hu- 
man nature. From this source, and to this 
source, God's appeals of grace must proceed. 
If love could become dominant and reign 
in God's moral universe, hate and selfish- 
ness must get out, and Peace spread her 
white wings over a redeemed race. This 
was the problem of Grace. This is why 
Isaiah calls Christ in his vision of prophecy 
"The Prince of peace." This is why the 



34 Steps to Salvation. 

angels sang on his advent, "Peace on earth, 
good will to men/' This is why no man 
enters Christ's kingdom of love and peace 
if he has aught against his brother. He 
must first leave the altar and become recon- 
ciled to his brother — forgiving trespasses 
that his own may be forgiven — before the 
portals of the new and abundant life open 
to him. Such a step is the sine qua non — 
the indispensable of the Father's kingdom 
of grace. 

Its results are obedience, love, and right 
human and divine relations. 

When this is accomplished, the victory of 
grace is complete in an individual soul. 

Here begins, with increased responsibil- 
ity, the individual's relation to the coming 
Brotherhood of Man. This Christian indi- 
vidual erects the family altar, and makes a 
Christian home where love and purity 
reigns. Christian homes, in a wider and 



Brotherhood of Man. 35 

larger circle, make Christian society where 
the social relations are pure, peaceful, and 
beneficent in fellowship and co-operation. 
Out of this Christian society in a still wider 
and larger circle arise Christian govern- 
ments, based on the rights of the individual, 
protecting the home, and restraining the 
vicious, and enthroning the Golden Rule 
in all social and industrial relations. Thus 
the Brotherhood of Man is the ultimate and 
final product of God's redeeming grace. 

In connection with this essential step of 
human brotherhood the realms of law and 
grace come into view. For want of proper 
discrimination and vision of the truth, men 
are befogged in their conceptions, and see 
"men as trees walking." They do not see 
humanity as Jesus saw it, and are content 
with the formal observance of the law. 
Therefore, they never enter the realm of 
grace with its freedom and brotherhood. 



36 Steps to Salvation. 

President Hyde, of Bowdoin College, has 
recently pictured in language, terse and sim- 
ple, the attitude and failure of the legalist. 
He says: 

" All men sin ; and all men are under con- 
demnation. The man who fancies he has 
kept the whole law of God, and prides him- 
self upon it, merely shows how incapable 
he is of appreciating the infinite breadth 
of service and depth of sympathy the real 
keeping of Divine law would involve. Man 
naturally wants to have his own way and 
gratify his own desires, regardless of what 
it costs in misery to others, injury to others, 
and insult to God. Law says to him: 'Thou 
shalt not do the mean and selfish thing thy 
animal nature prompts. If thou sinnest 
thou shalt suffer the remorse of conscience, 
the contempt of thy fellows, the condem- 
nation of God.' 

"Reluctantly, and through constraint, 



Brotherhood of Mast. 37 

man compromises on a perfunctory and 
half-hearted obedience. To escape the pen- 
alty he obeys the law ; to silence conscience, 
he keeps the commandments; to maintain 
his respectability, he conforms to the social 
standard. Conformity without character, 
prudence without principle, respectability 
without integrity, is all mere law can do 
for man. It is the negative aspect of right- 
eousness; the primary school stage of 
Christian character. 

"It is a powerful deterrent from the 
grosser forms of evil ; but for the positive 
promotion of the freer and nobler forms of 
goodness we must look to a more gracious 
dispensation ; we must be born again/' 

The chief characteristic of the realm of 
grace, into which we must be born, is that 
there we behold what others have done for 
us, and see how we should feel towards 
them. It is more than outward conform- 



38 Steps to Salvation. 

ity, the very opposite of the pride of the 
Pharisee. It is the sense of a soul's grati- 
tude to others, and a disposition to repay 
in service both kind and patient. This 
realm of grace is forgiveness and love in 
action. The three degrees of its manifes- 
tation, in all of which Jesus was pre-emi- 
nent both by precept and example, are: 
Service lovingly rendered to others without 
hope of reward; forgiveness to those who 
wrong and injure us; and the spirit of 
vicarious sacrifice, which makes the sins 
of men our personal sorrow, and the 
wrongs they do in their world-wide rela- 
tions our personal grievance. Thus grace 
furnishes the motives that underlie a hu- 
man brotherhood so essential to the king- 
dom of righteousness. Jesus, therefore, 
looking down on the strifes and bitterness 
of men, makes his appeal to the inner life 
of the individual. 



Brotherhood of Man. 39 

And when Jesus gets his "Christ-spirit" 
into the heart of the individual, man be- 
comes ashamed of his meanness, brutality, 
injustice, and ingratitude, and comes to the 
wider vision of his true relations. 

He can then "love his neighbor as him- 
self," and enter "the kingdom of God," 
which is "not meat and drink; but right- 
eousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost." 

The climax of all the truth revealed in 
the New Testament is the Brotherhood of 
Man. This conclusion is reached, or all 
else is false. This gospel of the law of love 
and the Golden Rule this age must have, 
hear, and obey, or perish by its own greed, 
avarice, and selfish tyranny of oppression. 
For this truth the Christian man must 
stand, no matter about the political con- 
flicts it engenders or the sacrifices it en- 
tails. This application of the gospel of 



40 Steps to Salvation. 

Jesus Christ is the last conflict of Chris- 
tianity with sin and Antichrist. The 
Church must move up to this last ditch 
and rampart, and stand for Christian so- 
cialism, the law of love, and the Golden 
Rule, as the remedial agents in society, or 
degenerate into a social club, where only 
avarice and human greed crucify our 
Christ afresh, and send the cause of human 
brotherhood back a thousand years on 
God's dial of progress, while humanity 
suffers, suffers, until some better and new 
day-star arises in God's providences of a 
regenerated earth and society. 

" I say to thee, do thou repeat, 

To the first man thou mayest meet, 

In lane, highway, or open street, 

That he, and we, and all men move 

Under a canopy of love, 

As broad as the blue sky above." 

—Trench—" Kingdom of God." 



THE FACT OF SIN. 

Siisr alienates men from God and each 
other. It is pre-eminently a disturbing 
element in humanity wherever found. The 
Fact of Sin is an essential and basal doc- 
trine of Christianity. Its recognition, to- 
gether with its guilt and paralyzing effect 
on man's noblest powers, is a necessary 
step in the salvation of any soul. The first 
object, therefore, of the gospel and the 
Holy Spirit is "to convince men of sin, 
righteousness, and judgment to come." To 
realize what sin is, and to be conscious of 
its guilt, constitutes a step towards friend- 
ship with God. This conviction of sin 
leads to Bunyan's "Wicket Gate," and is 
the dawn of genuine repentance and soul 
sorrow over its guilt. 

41 



42 Steps to Salvation. 

Scientifically and philosophically, many 
men have come to realize that "sin is the 
transgression of the law," and that "the 
wages of sin is death" in more ways than 
one. Sin is a disregard of God's law and 
will as a Father; and its destroying effect 
is seen in its debasing power, and the de- 
pravity which follows man's separation 
from God by his acts of disobedience. The 
turpitude of man's original sin is all 
summed up in unbelief that caused con- 
tempt of Fatherly authority, and made 
Adam feel that God was harsh in his com- 
mand; an unbelief that led to gross infi- 
delity in following the devil rather than 
God; an unbelief that brought discontent 
and envy, and caused Adam to thick that 
God had denied him what was essential to 
his happiness ; an unbelief resulting in pro- 
digious pride in desiring to be like God; 
and an unbelief that resulted in theft in 



The Fact of Sin. 43 

taking what God had reserved as a token 
of his Fatherly supremacy, for all else was 
given to Adam to enjoy. 

This unbelief caused separation from 
God. Separation from God was depriva- 
tion of his conscious presence and pro- 
tection. Hence man's fall and depravity. 
For it takes communion with God to con- 
stitute perfect manhood as originally in- 
tended. Sin, then, in its widest sense, is 
isolation from God; and the curse of sin, 
in its fullest effect, is absolute selfishness 
that fills the world with greed, tyranny, 
avaricious oppression, and death temporal, 
spiritual, and eternal. 

Sin, and its effects thus described, orig- 
inates in the act of the human will; and 
that it did so originate with its far-reaching 
influence, and that, too, as no part of God's 
design, the Scriptures plainly teach. In no 
other definition or way, in the writer's 



44 Steps to Saltation. 

judgment, can theology exalt man's rela- 
tive dignity, and emphasize God's abound- 
ing mercy and grace to meet an emergency 
which arose in his moral government, and 
threatened to thwart his plans for man's 
dominion. 

The question of sin is a psychological 
one, as well as a Biblical truth, and that is 
why metaphysics leads to, and is closely 
related to, theology. It is asserted, as an 
essential doctrine of the New Testament, 
that no act can have moral quality until 
taken up by the will, and results in a free 
choice or rejection of God's moral law and 
the innate sense of right in every soul. 

In this way only, men can reasonably ac- 
count for sin, and therefore present its 
awful consequences as depicted in the 
Scriptures. 

This enables men to proclaim the gospel 
of the New Testament, which emphasizes 



The Fact of Sin. 45 

man's consciousness of freedom, and also 
responsibility for his acts. This freedom 
of man with his spiritual nature makes him 
in "the image of God" as the highest pre- 
rogative of his manhood. Bishop Foster, 
in his sixth volume, "Studies in Theology," 
affirms that this theory of sin and freedom 
of man "fits all the facts of existence, 
furnishes the indispensable conditions of 
reponsibility, lays the foundation of moral 
government, accords with intuitive convic- 
tions, is in harmony with consciousness, 
gives function and authority to conscience, 
makes the restraints and demands of the 
law just, satisfies the dictates of reason, 
agrees with experience, and harmonizes 
with revelation." Therefore it may be 
said that, whatever theory and fact of the 
origin of sin does all this, must be the truth 
as tested by human experience. 

In this age of doubt and investigation, 



46 Steps to Salvation. 

such a truth of revelation, both in man and 
in the Book, must be affirmed most posi- 
tively as an essential doctrine of Christian- 
ity, and as basal to several other essentials 
which find their generic origin in this fact 
of sin. In this age of ethical preaching 
and appeals, one of the weaknesses of the 
pulpit is a failure duly to impress this fact 
of sin, on which is built all the necessities 
for the redemptive powers of Christ. Thus 
"deep calleth unto deep." A great sinner 
demands a great Savior. 

The modern tendency is to condone sin, 
to think lightly of its guilt, and excuse 
men because of infirmities. In opinion, 
it is a weakness of the flesh, and is not such 
an awful thing if only men's intentions are 
right and Godward. They forget that sin 
isolates men from God, and destroys spir- 
itual faculties, and enthrones selfishness 
in all human relations. A compromising 



The Fact of Sin. 47 

view of sin lessens the necessity of the 
atonement and weakens the appeal of the 
gospel. It puts the soul in such attitude 
as to miss the fullness of grace, and robs 
him of a due sense of sin. 

It has been well said, "The sense of sin 
is a step beyond the consciouness of evil." 
It is a step towards God and spiritual light. 

As Professor Van Dyke puts it, "The 
sense of sin is the apprehension of Al- 
mighty God." With this apprehension 
comes the consciousness of guilt, and the 
assurance that the soul is out of the realm 
of grace and pardoning love — lost and 
ruined by perversity and disobedience. 
Thus sin is a "thing to be felt." And 
more, it fixes destiny, bears its fruit in 
character, both now and hereafter, and is 
fearful in its consequences, thwarting 
God's plan of dominion for every soul. 

This fact of sin must be stated a little 



48 Steps to Salvation. 

differently from the way in which our 
fathers stated it, to engage the attention, 
the thought, and the fear of men who are 
prone to look at all questions of destiny 
from the standpoint of modern scientific 
research and psychological investigation. 
That this fact of sin and its fearful conse- 
quences can be so stated as to be equal, 
if not superior, to the old "hellfire" argu- 
ment on the hearts of men, is admitted by 
intelligent and well-educated people. 

Many men of culture, who have not yet 
professed faith in a personal Christ, nor 
found by experience his purifying and sus- 
taining grace, are moved to a rectitude of 
life because of the scientific facts of sin. 
And the modern way to make men respect 
the Bible way of punishment is to show its 
scientific and philosophical reasonableness ; 
and that every man under law — the same 
in nature and revelation — is the architect 



The Fact of Sin. 49 

of his own destiny, reaping now and here, 
as well as hereafter, just what he has sown. 
The poet expressed the highest truth when 
he said: 

" The tissues of the life to be 

"We weave with colors all our own, 
And in the field of destiny 

We reap as we have sown. 
Still shall the soul around it call 

The shadows which it gathered here, 
And painted on the eternal wall 

The past shall reappear." 

4 



THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 

The fact and consequences of sin make 
revelation a necessity. Men soon realized 
that they had passed under a cloud, were 
limited and fettered in spiritual vision. As 
Watson puts it, they had experienced "a 
deprivation from which depravity fol- 
lowed," and that they were in bondage to 
a force they knew not how to overcome. 
When they would do good, evil was pres- 
ent. Thus they realized that they were 
morally diseased. Nature shed but little 
light on the origin of the disease, and less 
as to a sufficient remedy. 

It is here that Infinite mercy dawns on 

man, and his Father comes forth to meet 

an emergency in his moral government by 

50 



The Inspiration of the Bible. 51 

messages of love and grace. It was a 
revelation of facts, truths, and promises, 
such as darkened sinful nature could not 
conceive and originate of its own accord, 
but which enlightened moral natures and 
appealed to the faith element in man, by 
whose want of exercise he got into trouble. 

God revealed to man that the way back 
to his Father's house was by the same door- 
way through which he went out as a prodi- 
gal, and that if he would turn his face 
homeward, before he reached the portals he 
should find One in the way who would bear 
his sins, clothe him with love and purity, 
and restore him to more than Edenic com- 
munion with the Father. 

For hereafter, through Divine redemp- 
tion and the gift of the Paraclete, men 
should know good and evil as God knows 
them. 

Now, it is an essential doctrine of Chris- 



52 Steps to Salvation. 

tianity that this message of love is in- 
spired. It is a Divine thought and mes- 
sage, never originated in human minds, 
though uttered through chosen human 
voices; "for the prophecy" — the teaching 
and truth — "came not in old time by the 
will of man, but holy men of God spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
So spoke Peter, and he further said, "No 
prophecy [or teaching of the Scriptures] 
is of any private interpretation." 

It is true that God's process is a long 
educational one of types, shadows, and his- 
torical providences in behalf of "a peculiar 
people" and of prophetic visions ; but it is 
all a part of the scaffolding and foothills, 
according to human needs, by which hu- 
manity climbs to the summit of the moun- 
tain-peak where they can "behold the Lamb 
of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world." 



The Inspiration of the Bible. 53 

The Holy Bible is the revealed will of 
God, and must be accepted as "the rule 
of a man's faith and practice/' This step 
to salvation precedes the soul's personal 
appropriation of "the exceeding great and 
precious promises" by which men become 
"partakers of the Divine nature." To 
doubt here is to lose the way back to God, 
and wander in the gloom and uncertainty 
of skepticism. Such has been the fate of 
many who have followed the lesser lights 
of human intellects, who present educa- 
tional methods and evolutionary processes 
as the way into the kingdom of God. The 
fact is, men are "born again" into the king- 
dom of peace, purity, and love. It is a 
radical process, accomplished by the re- 
vealed power of the Holy Ghost, accord- 
ing to the provisions of the Holy Word 
of the Father. This radical experience can 
only be realized by obedience to God's in- 



54 Steps to Salvation. 

spired Word; and this step depends upon 
intellectual asssent and volitional consent 
to the truth which Christ says "makes men 
free." 

Acceptance, then, of the inspiration of 
the Bible, and obedience to revealed truth 
about "man and God," is the prerequisite 
of spiritual knowledge. " If , " says Jesus 
to the Jews who thronged about him in the 
temple, ' ' any man is willing to do His will, 
he shall know of the doctrine." To him 
shall come the visions of soul-knowledge 
that make God's plan of redemption clear, 
bright, and penetrating as a sunbeam in 
nature, reaching to the very bottom of 
human darkness and needs. 

When men consider the object of the 
Bible, leading up to the full gospel of Jesus 
Christ and the office and duty of the Chris- 
tian minister, there is no neutral ground 
as to the inspiration of the Scriptures. It 



The Inspiration of the Bible. 55 

is the Word of God, from Genesis to 
Revelation, or it is not. 

Any questioning of its full inspiration, 
and the literary rejection of certain parts 
of the Bible as to the authorship and times 
of writing, simply causes skepticism and 
agnosticism among the masses who know 
nothing as to the rules of sound criticism, 
and care less, if they can only find an ex- 
cuse for their infidelity and sensual living. 
This radical, destructive Higher Criticism 
is dangerous business, and has its roots 
largely in a certain kind of intellectual 
pride and an assumed reputation of scholar- 
ship, which is far from the humility of 
Jesus Christ and his sweet spirit of im- 
plicit confidence in God's Word, which he 
so frequently quoted and relied on in his 
ministry. 

Jesus Christ knew more about the gen- 
uine authority of the Pentateuch and the 



56 Steps to Saltation. 

prophecy of Isaiah than all the destructive 
higher critics ; and the study of the radical 
higher critics, their arguments and state- 
ments, leads the writer, notwithstanding 
the risks of reputation as a scholar in the 
estimation of the few, to the simple faith 
of his mother in the plenary inspiration 
of God's Holy Book as to the thoughts 
and message the Father would reveal to 
man for his deliverance from sin. The 
vehicle of thought, words, is secondary, 
because the thought and the truth always 
takes care of its own correct expression. 
When men quibble on the phraseology 
of God's Word, and about the time and 
the men through whom the Father spoke, 
and also matters of profane history, they 
throw into the air a lot of dust about non- 
essentials. They simply weaken the 
strategic positions of Christians on the doc- 
trine of Bible inspiration, and abandon the 



The Inspiration of the Bible. 57 

fortress of the Church to a lot of ruthless 
innovators who have more intellectual 
pride than reverence, and a greater desire 
for scholarly self-aggrandizement than the 
salvation of the masses through implicit 
faith in God's Word and promises. 

The effect of this radical critical atti- 
tude towards God's Inspired Word has 
been so tersely and correctly stated by Dr. 
William V. Kelley, editor of the Methodist 
Review, that it deserves positive statement 
and indorsement. He says: "The extreme 
ideas preached by many of the higher 
critics have, as a rule, paralyzed spiritual 
growth and retarded the revival of religion. 
Wherever such views have obtained a firm 
foothold, not only conversions have ceased 
to be numerous, but even church attend- 
ance has greatly fallen off, reverence for 
the Bible as the Inspired Word of God 
manifestly decreased, and the belief in 



58 Steps to Salvation. 

prayer has been weakened; in fact, the 
prayer-meeting itself has been either di- 
rectly discontinued or changed into a semi- 
social gathering. 

"The cardinal doctrines of Christianity, 
as held by those who have been famous 
as evangelists and soul-winners, are no 
longer favorite themes for sermons. Sin, 
as an awful crime against God and some- 
thing deserving punishment, is rarely dwelt 
upon. Calvary has been relegated to the 
background. The merits of the atoning 
blood of Jesus Christ are not dwelt upon 
by the disciples of Wellhausen. Repent- 
ance for sin and the necessity for the new 
birth, spoken of by our Lord to Mcodemus, 
have little place in the theology of the 
critical school. 

"Instead of the glorious doctrines which 
gave, not only to giants like Foster and 



The Inspiration of the Bible. 59 

Simpson, but also to thousands of Meth- 
odist ministers less able but equally faith- 
ful to Jesus Christ and the Word of his 
truth, such tremendous power in turning 
men to the Lord, we have now too much 
of an emasculated theology, which presents 
Christ as the typical Man, the great 
Exemplar, in whose footsteps we must fol- 
low. There is an awful indifference to 
what were regarded by the fathers as some 
of the most important doctrines of Chris- 
tianity." 

This fully and Divinely-inspired Word 
gives men God's remedy for sin, which 
may be stated in John the Baptist's most 
comprehensive language — for no statement 
in all literature contains so much truth in 
so few words — "Behold the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sin of the world." 
Therefore the redemptive powers of Christ 



60 Steps to Salvation. 

become the essential doctrine, the unique 
and chief characteristic of God's revealed 
system of truth for human regeneration. 

Its beauty and its power are seen in its 
perfection and completeness as a remedy 
for sin. Accepting its provisions, by con- 
fidence and personal application it leads to 
full communion with the Father, equal, 
if not superior, to that enjoyed in Eden, 
and to a "perfect love that casts out all 
fear." This glorious result, this white- 
clad, purity-crowned mountain-peak of re- 
demption, has many foothills and lesser 
peaks of redeeming grace, as verified in 
human experience, and all equally essential 
in our journey upwards towards Christ's 
perfection and our final home in "that 
house not made with hands." 

It is not necessary for the writer to stop 
to delineate them, or to dwell upon their 
natural order in God's Word; for this 



The Inspiration of the Bible. 61 

straight and narrow pilgrim way is best 
known, from the "wicket gate" to "Beulah 
land/' in humanity's own experience. The 
important thing in this school of grace is, 
"Wherefore leaving the first principles of 
the doctrine of Christ let us go on to per- 
fection" — teleioteta — the end, maturity, 
the summit where God dwells, that men 
may ultimately have dominion among the 
principalities and powers of our Father's 
universe. 



THE EEDEMPTIVE POWERS OF 
CHRIST. 

Basal to the atonement and redemptive 
powers of Christ to be realized in the souls 
of men are the two great facts of his 
Divinity and incarnation. Not to accept 
and affirm these two facts of Christ's na- 
ture as essential to the work of redemption 
is to break the continuity of God's thought 
as revealed in the preceding fundamental 
truths. 

To set aside the Divine incarnation is 
to bring Christ's redemptive powers down 
to the level of a Unitarian, human philos- 
ophy of evolution of character by & pro- 
cess of education, and thus ignore a the 
blood of the everlasting covenant/' and 

fail to enter the kingdom of grace. 

62 



Redemptive Powers of Christ. 63 

Equally important with the Divine Son- 
ship of Christ, and perhaps more essential 
in this age, is the emphasis we must place 
on the perfect human nature of the "Son 
of man/' in whom dwelt all the fullness 
of the Godhead bodily" — not two Christs 
in one person, but one Christ, in the per- 
fection of his human and Divine nature, 
our go-between, touching God in all his 
Divine attributes, and reaching man in all 
his experiences and necessities; our Elder 
Brother, "touched with a feeling of our 
infirmities, and tempted in all points like 
as we are, yet without sin;" a personal 
Christ, our glorious Example, and the 
Father's picture of a humanity that obeys 
his moral laws and abides in his love. 

It has been well said by an eminent 
preacher who makes his gospel meet the 
needs of the day: "If the Son of God, 
who is the image of the Father, by lay- 



64 Steps to Saltation. 

ing aside the outward prerogatives of his 
Divine mode of existence, actually becomes 
human, then, and only then, the Divine 
image in which man is created is no figure 
of speech, but a substantial likeness of 
spiritual being. There is a true fellow- 
ship between our souls and our Father in 
heaven. Virtue is not a vain dream, but 
a definite striving towards his perfection. 
Revelation is not a deception, but a mes- 
sage from him who knows all to those 
who know only part. Prayer is not an 
empty form, but a real communion." 

" Speak to Him, then, for He hears, 
And Spirit with spirit can meet ; 
Closer is He than breathing, 
And nearer than hands and feet." 
—Tennyson: "The Higher Pantheism." 

This is the essential fact of Christ's na- 
ture which needs to be emphasized to-day. 
This is the step back to the Christ of the 



Kedemptive Powers of Christ. 65 

early Church, which had such power over 
the hearts of men. Standing at that view- 
point, men may well say, with St. Clement 
in his first epistle: "By him we look up 
to the heights of heaven. By him we be- 
hold as in a glass the Father's immaculate 
and most excellent visage. By him the 
eyes of our heart are opened. By him our 
foolish and darkened understandings blos- 
som anew towards the light which floods 
God's moral universe from the Sun of 
righteousness." 

The atonement is also a basal, essential 
truth in the redemptive powers of Christ. 
As to the theories of the atonement, there 
are, in the last analysis of all that has been 
said on the subject, only three: the moral 
influence, the satisfaction or the substitu- 
tional, and the governmental theories. The 
governmental theory, when properly 
understood, includes all that is of any value 
5 



66 Steps to Salvation. 

in the other two theories, and is the only 
view consistent with the essential doctrines 
already stated, and which is the reasonable 
fact of Divine love, and which also har- 
monizes with the requirements of God's 
moral government, and meets the neces- 
sities of man's fallen and helpless con- 
dition. 

With this view of the atonement cer- 
tain cardinal doctrines of Scriptural 
soteriology may be emphasized, and which 
Bishop Foster says are entirely settled, so 
completely does he believe in the triumph 
of Wesleyan Arminianism. The bishop 
says: "One is, that the atonement is only 
provisory in its character; that it renders 
men salvable, but does not necessarily save 
them. Another, and the consequence of 
the former, is the conditionality of salva- 
tion." 

Now, the governmental theory of the 



Repemptive Powers of Christ. 67 

atonement, when properly presented, will 
arrest the attention and thought of trained 
and educated men. Its reasonableness 
banishes skepticism, and on its basis of 
Scriptural statement the preacher may 
emphasize human responsibility, and make 
appeals as to character and destiny which 
will move men to moral action, the exer- 
cise of the faith element in human nature. 
The effect of the atonement may be 
briefly stated thus: 

1. It removes the effect of original sin 
bv reconciliation, and condemned sin — 
unbelief — in the flesh. 

2. It enables God, in his moral govern- 
ment, to take away from the souls of men 
the blighting effects of actual transgres- 
sions by pardon and regeneration. 

3. It opens the way for communion with 
God through the baptism of the Holy 
Spirit. 



68 Steps to Salvation. 

4. Jesus Christ, by his atonement of rec- 
onciliation and ministry of love, reveal- 
ing the Father's heart, removes, not only 
the result of sin, but takes away unbelief, 
the cause of all sin. He goes to the 
fountain-head of man's sin and rebellion, 
and takes away the poison, and sends forth 
the pure and living water of life. The 
life "that is hid with Christ in God" doubts 
no more. Jesus Christ, by his atonement, 
illuminates and answers all questions about 
man's origin, his spiritual nature, his des- 
tiny, vindicates God, the Father, and es- 
tablishes his moral government on a basis 
of love and human freedom. Such are the 
redemptive powers of Christ which Paul, 
in his missionary life and teachings, em- 
phasizes as the great essential truths of 
Christianity — the effectual doctrinal steps 
to personal salvation. 



THE MISSION OF CHKIST. 

If we have kept step with God in the 
pathway of the just, see truth as he sees 
it, and feel sin as he feels it in his moral 
government, we have come to the most 
pathetic and wonderful scene in the drama 
of redemption. It is the vision of pure 
love. It is Christ's relation to a world of 
sin, as well as his friendship for the sin- 
ner. 

Here the soul learns the meaning of 
"atonement" by experience, and discovers 
that Christ's mission was one of joy and 
peace. He comes as a Peacemaker between 
God and man, and his beneficent work per- 
meates all human relations. This media- 
tion of Christ involves suffering, sacrifice, 

and the highest expression of love on the 

69 



70 Steps to Salvation. 

part of the Peacemaker. This vision of 
purity and love, bearing the burdens of 
the impure and unworthy, is what touches 
the sinner's heart. He sees, perhaps for 
the first time, that the object of such an 
expiation of love on the cross is the re- 
newal of fellowship between man and God. 
He endured the cross, with a submissive 
spirit and patient love, to bring together 
divided hearts and restore harmony in dis- 
cordant lives. The sinner's guilt and con- 
sciousness of sin makes him feel, in the 
presence of such love, that somehow this 
sacrifice is related to the need and con- 
dition of his own soul. In this light he 
beholds Christ as standing between God 
and man, touching both the human and 
the Divine. In this sense Christ becomes 
the High Priest of sinful and repentant 
humanity, the Burden-bearer of a fallen 
race, and the soul's best Friend. Thus, in 



The Mission of Christ. 71 

the soul's vision of Christ, it appears that 
"the cross is not the cause of God's grace. 
It is the seal and result of his grace. It 
is the channel, made by grace, through 
which all the blessed effects of Divine love 
may flow, across the bitter waste that sin 
has made, to all who hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, in order that they may 
be filled." 

Christ's mission, then, is one of recon- 
ciliation, and the value of his atonement 
is seen in the love which made him one, 
in his perfect life, with all suffering hu- 
manity. His friendship for the sinner and 
his relation to God opens up a way of 
approach to the "Holy of Holies," and 
gives the soul new courage and power over 
sin. When we know the love of God, re- 
vealed in Christ, which meets all our con- 
scious soul needs, then we forsake our sins 
and become sons of the Father by the life 



72 Steps to Salvation. 

of obedience which Christ so fully illus- 
trated in his ministry and sacrifice as the 
Peacemaker of the race. 

Stated another way, Christ's mission, as 
a revelation of love, was intended to make 
men ashamed of their sins, willing to for- 
sake them, and live the life he lived of 
friendship with God. To this attitude of 
the soul, and the desire of righteousness, 
Christ responds with "the blood of the 
everlasting covenant/' the clean heart and 
the enduement of the Holy Ghost. This 
new and "more abundant life" is a con- 
stantly growing and expanding knowledge 
of the power of Divine love. And so the 
benefits and experience of the atonement, 
as well as the full mission of Christ, will 
never be completed until the discipline and 
education of humanity, in the school of 
grace, are completed. "Turn to the litera- 
ture of Christianity," said Dr. Van Dyke, 



The Mission of Christ. 73 

"and you find there the experience of peace 
with God, through the atonement of Christ 
crucified, uttered in a thousand ways, ex- 
pressed in a thousand forms, which rise 
spontaneously out of the varying charac- 
ters and conditions of men. 

" This is the strange thing, the beautiful 
thing, the vital thing about this experience. 
It is not possible to reduce it to one fixed 
and final statement. It is forever chang- 
ing and growing and expanding, because it 
is a living experience, an ethical reality, 
an element of moral life, and as a man's 
thought of sin and his knowledge of sin 
are deepened by living, as his idea of God 
and his fellowship with God are purified 
and uplifted by believing, so his sense of 
reconciliation with God through Christ 
must grow purer, deeper, and loftier to 
keep its place in his inner life. ' ' And thus 
the mission of Christ is one of supply for 



74 Steps to Salvation. 

the soul. Paul found him a constant 
source of strength and victory, and said 
to the hesitating believers, "My God shall 
supply all your needs according to his 
riches in glory by Christ Jesus." How 
shall all this be realized in the lives of men 
to-day ? The question requires a complete 
and explicit answer; for men need, not 
theoretical, but practical Christianity. 



STEPS OF ACCEPTANCE. 

By the vision of love and the sense of 
guilt men come to know that they are sin- 
ners, and ruined in life and character by 
sin. They feel an alienation and separa- 
tion from God. "The far country" is a 
place of poverty, bondage to menial serv- 
ice, in unclean things, and of intense soul- 
hunger. The way back to the Father's 
house becomes of great importance. The 
steps of acceptance are five — not many, 
but most comprehensive and vital: 

1. The consent of the human will to 
receive Jesus Christ as Priest, Prophet, and 
King results in soul-surrender to God, 
whereby grace may do its perfect work. 
Man's free moral agency and power of 
choice can shut the door of grace, and 
doom the soul to the perpetual bondage 

75 



76 Steps to Salvation. 

of Satan. God does not coerce the human 
will. It is left free to act, except as mo- 
tives, inspired by the Holy Ghost, arise 
to influence the souPs choice. Herein 
arises man's accountability to God, and re- 
sponsibility for his own destiny, under the 
reign of grace. Every man settles his re- 
lation to Jesus Christ; and the attitude of 
his own soul is the first important step in 
the experience of personal redemption. 

The beloved disciple, in the introduction 
of his Gospel, says, in speaking of the 
ministry of Jesus, "As many as received 
him, to them gave he the power to be- 
come the sons of God, even to them that 
believe on his name." This acceptance of 
Jesus is more than mere intellectual assent 
to the truths of revealed religion. Many 
men exercise intellect assent to the his- 
torical Christ, yet remain in their sins and 
in the gall of bitterness. Their wills and 



Steps of Acceptance. 77 

affections never concur in the accepting of 
the plan of redemption. The redemptive 
fountain is open; but for such men it has 
no reality, because they never surrender, 
as did Naaman, to test its cleansing value. 
The act of receiving Christ that confers 
the power of sonship is unconditional soul- 
surrender, based on the consent of the hu- 
man will to take Christ as Priest, with "the 
blood of his everlasting covenant as the 
only remedy for sin." It is a willingness 
to take Christ as Prophet — Teacher of the 
Ages — in his matchless statements and re- 
vealments of "the truth, the way, and the 
life." It is a calm disposition to sit at 
his feet and be instructed in the things 
of God and the human soul. This teach- 
able spirit is the fruit of soul-surrender 
to the will and wisdom of God. It has an- 
other phase. Men delight in and honor 
ultimate authority. They like to have 



78 Steps to Salvation. 

questions settled. This receiving Christ 
implies taking him as King in their moral 
natures, to reign in and rule over their 
lives and conduct, thus making him the 
ultimate authority in all ethical relations. 
This is the dawn of soul-rest and freedom 
from doubts and human speculations. 

It is a matter of universal Christian ex- 
perience that, when a soul thus really sur- 
renders to the Father and his Christ, the 
works of grace begin to manifest them- 
selves, and the other steps of acceptance 
may be easily and instantly taken. When 
taken, the flood-light of "the more abun- 
dant life" bursts on the soul like the splen- 
dors of a cloudless day. This is what gives 
regeneration its joy, and the earth, and all 
therein, a new appearance and meaning. 

2. When a man really surrenders to 
God to do his will, the first and essential 
experience is that of repentance and con- 



Steps of Acceptance. 79 

version in its true sense. Repentance is 
confession of sin and the act of forsaking 
it forever. These two definite factors have 
other phases, such as sorrow, and regret 
over past conduct and attitude of soul to- 
wards God, hatred of sensual pleasures 
once enjoyed, a disposition to make repara- 
tion for wrong done others, and a sincere 
turning to God for deliverance from the 
bondage of an evil heart. This disposition 
of soul says, in great candor and deter- 
mination, "I will arise and go to my 
Father, that he may make me one of his 
servants/' This is conversion in its true 
sense. The soul turns and faces in an 
opposite direction. Once the face was 
from God and towards the "far country" 
of sin and rebellion ; now the face is God- 
ward and towards the Father's house. 

The direction is the soul's intent, and 
the moving motive is the forsaking of sin 



80 Steps to Salvation. 

forever. This spirit of confession of sin 
and unworthiness, and determination of 
obedience and purity, moves the infinite 
heart of the Father through grace to meet 
the returning prodigal with the kiss of rec- 
onciliation and the robes of restoration 
and adoption. 

Therefore, repentance, which comes 
from the Greek word "metaneo" means, 
in its broadest sense, "think over again, 
think differently, take a larger view of life 
and its relations." Sin thinks along the 
narrow lines of selfishness and sensuality; 
repentance thinks in harmony with the 
broader view of service and benevolence. 
Repentance is, therefore, to think as God 
thinks, love what God loves, and a dis- 
position to co-operate with God in the fields 
of Christian civilization and human 
brotherhood. This prerequisite of salva- 
tion is demanded of men and women who 



Steps of Acceptance. 81 

may not be conscious of any sin forbidden 
in all the Ten Commandments. It is a 
requisite to the larger view of the Father- 
hood of God, the purity of noble manhood, 
and entrance into the kingdom of Christ. 

Many come to this "wicket gate" into 
the Divine life, and fail to enter because, 
while confessing sin and conscious of its 
guilt, they are unwilling to forsake it for- 
ever and act henceforth with God. They 
compromise, and "go away sorrowful," like 
the rich young man, because of assumed 
great possessions which they are unwilling 
to surrender to God. 

This closes the gateway to eternal life. 
The soul may linger in the regions of the 
Beulah Land, and never enter its joys of 
full redemption. There are many such fol- 
lowers of Christ who are without the ex- 
perience of clean hearts and the joy of 
assurance and adoption. They have not 
6 



82 Steps to Salvation. 

fully determined to forever forsake sin, 
and their repentance and conversion are 
imperfect. Let no soul "hungering and 
thirsting after righteousness" make this 
fatal mistake. If so, the hunger and thirst 
will depart, and they will never "be filled." 

3. With genuine repentance and turning 
to God comes the vital step of union with 
Christ by faith. With confidence the peni- 
tent sinner relies upon Christ's merits, and 
the result is salvation through the power 
of the blood of the atonement and the new 
birth by the Holy Spirit. 

Paul states this experience of redemp- 
tion through Christ in a most simple way: 
"By grace are ye saved through faith; 
and that not of yourselves ; it [the grace] 
is the gift of God." We have no part in 
it except the beggar's part of acceptance. 
The acceptance is the confident act of 
trust, or faith. 



Steps of Acceptance. 83 

The exercise of faith is so simple that 
it can scarcely be defined. It is a natural 
exercise of a faith-faculty in man, which 
he uses in a thousand ways in life, just 
as he uses his intellectual faculties to at- 
tain knowledge. The exercise of natural 
faith, in the experiences of business and 
the voluntary acts of men, is the best defi- 
nition of the spiritual faith required in the 
personal appropriation of the benefits of 
Christ's redeeming love. Thus every soul 
may define and exercise it for himself — 
as he follows the light within his own 
being. 

It is the confident trust of a child in 
its earthly parent, a trust so implicit and 
full that God never disappoints it in his 
kingdom of grace. He keeps his covenant 
of promises. And by "these exceeding 
great and precious promises" we become 
"partakers of the Divine nature, having 



84 Steps to Salvation. 

escaped the corruption that is in the world 
through lust." God, in his infinite grace 
and love, makes it so, and the proof of 
this victory of faith is the conscious joy 
of cleansing and adoption, and from which 
there is no appeal of reason. It belongs to 
the realm of spiritual processes, known 
only to him who believes and is saved. 

Some discriminations, however, may be 
made which reveal its simplicity and assist 
men to exercise the gift of faith. As a 
means of redemption, faith is not a work. 
It is, rather, the ceasing of work. Faith 
is not climbing the mountains by our own 
strength. It is, rather, sinking into the 
arms of Jesus Christ, at the foot of the 
mountain, and letting him carry us, by his 
perfect life and Divine nature, to the sum- 
mit of snow-clad purity, where God dwells. 

We are to put our case, however bad, 
into his hands, as the Great Physician, and 



Steps of Acceptance. 85 

take, in our silent inactivity, his remedies, 
and without resistance submit to the 
Surgeon's knife, for it means new life and 
deliverance from the seeds of death. 
Evangelical, saving faith is a man's per- 
sonal belief that Christ is the only Savior — 
thus renouncing every other refuge — and 
coming to an actual trust in the Savior 
by a personal apprehension of his merits 
as "the Lamb of God which taketh away 
the sin of the world." 

Faith, then, is the link which unites man, 
in his spiritual needs and weakness, to 
God's grace and power, as vouchsafed to 
man in the gift of his Son. The sinner's 
needs are great. The power and love of 
God are abundant. Thus faith is the in- 
strument of every soul's redemption. It 
is pre-eminently the union of man and 
God. Without the outstretched hand of 
need and trust, God can not come to us. 



86 Steps to Salvation. 

The union must be perfect, the contact 
actual, before the Divine electric current 
of the Holy Ghost can quicken the soul 
with new life. This faith of a needy, 
perishing soul says: 

' 'Just as I am, thou wilt receive, 
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve ; 
Because Thy promise I believe, 
O, Lamb of God, I come, I come !" 

4. As the results of these steps of ac- 
ceptance, some definite experiences take 
place which mark and indicate progress in 
the Divine life. The first is pardon, or, in 
theological terms, justification. 

Justification is the act of God's free 
grace in which he pardons man's sins, and 
accepts him as righteous in his sight, for 
the sake of Christ. It is a judicial act done 
for the soul in the court of heaven, thus 
changing the sinner's relation to God's law 
and government. The soul is no longer 



Steps of Acceptance. 87 

under condemnation, but is forgiven and 
freed from the guilt of his past conduct. 
It is an unquestioned teaching of the New 
Testament that all who repent of their 
sins, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
receive the forgiveness of sin. This is 
justification — pardon for past sins and the 
removal of guilt. Closely allied to this 
act of grace, in most experiences, is the 
realization of regeneration, or the "new 
birth." Regeneration, or being "born 
again," is the impartation of a new spirit- 
ual life to the soul by the Holy Ghost, by 
which a man becomes a new creature in 
Christ Jesus. It is a work of grace 
wrought in the soul, changing its state 
from spiritual death to moral life and 
power. It is the experience of cleansing 
and joy of the "more abundant life." John 
puts its effects this way, "And you hath 
he quickened, who were dead in trespasses 



88 Steps to Salvation. 

and sins." It is a perfect work of grace, 
and saves the man so completely that he 
experiences the assurance and witness of 
the Spirit that he is a son of God filled 
with "the joy of the Holy Ghost." 

Some discriminations must be made at 
this point. There is a Bible distinction be- 
tween justification and regeneration not al- 
ways understood by the seeker after spirit- 
ual life. It is a logical distinction; while 
as to time, these acts of grace may be one 
in the experience of the soul, and take place 
jointly as the result of the soul-desire and 
faith. But this it not necessarily so. It 
often happens that the seeker, for want 
of proper instruction, or under the awful 
guilt of past conduct, seeks only pardon, 
and obtains the experience of justification 
without the added joy of a clean heart and 
new life. This is seen to be possible when 
we know that justification places a man 



Steps of Acceptance. 89 

in a new relation to God, while regenera- 
tion puts man in a new state before him. 
This distinction is vital, and ought not to 
be misunderstood. 

These two acts of grace often take place 
at one and the same time as an act of in- 
telligent faith and soul-need, but not al- 
ways so. That depends on what a soul 
seeks. At this point, and for want of this 
distinction, error sometimes arises in the 
experiences of men, and a harmful mistake 
is made. In some experiences justification 
is mistaken for regeneration ; and genuine 
regeneration, or being "born again," 
realized later in life, because of soul-fail- 
ure to keep God's will, is mistaken for 
"the second blessing/' or sanctification, 
when, in fact, it is the first blessing that 
places the soul in a new state before God 
with a clean heart. It is not sanctifica- 
tion, but regeneration, a perfect work of 



90 Steps to Salvation. 

grace, which ought never to be minified 
to make room for the blessing of perfect 
love, which is quite a distinct work of 
grace, and leads to the highest standard 
of New Testament experience. This is 
the common mistake of many of the 
"second-blessing" hobbyists, which leads 
to the censorious spirit, denunciation of 
regenerated Christians, and spiritual pride, 
which belongs to spurious sanctification. 
This error is injurious to the cause of 
Christ, and is no part of the higher life 
of perfect faith and love which casts out 
fear and makes the union with Christ per- 
fect. If a soul has obtained the joy of 
pardon and freedom from past sins, and 
is still conscious of evil tendencies, and 
what has been called "inbred sin," let him 
come to Christ for a clean heart and the 
new birth by the Holy Ghost, so that he 
may start right in the divine life. This 



Steps of Acceptance. 91 

is a perfect work of grace. It can not be 
otherwise when done by a perfect Savior 
and by a perfect Holy Ghost. God does 
not do imperfect work, and to teach or 
think so is to reflect on Infinite grace 
and love. 

All these steps of acceptance and grace 
have been termed and called "conver- 
sion," in a popular use of the word, and 
which signifies a radical change of the 
moral nature from the controlling power 
of sin to that of righteousness, peace, and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. It is just what 
Jesus means when he says, "Except ye be 
converted, and become as little children, ye 
shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. ' ' 

5. The higher life, described by so many 
imperfect terms, is the consecration of 
one's entire being and effects to God for 
sacred and holy uses. It is a distinct act 
of faith, and on God's acceptance, by the 



92 Steps to Salvation. 

witness and filling of the Holy Ghost, is 
a joy of experience and triumph in divine 
life much sweeter and fuller than the joy 
of regeneration, because regeneration, 
which was the beginning of this higher 
life, has added soul-capacity for God, which 
is filled, by an act of faith and consecra- 
tion, with the infinite love of God. This 
should be the goal of every Christian, and 
is the blessed privilege of every redeemed 
soul. 

That many live below it is a sad fact, 
and which, more than anything else, re- 
tards the rapid extension of Christ's king- 
dom. It is holiness unto the Lord and 
maturity in the Christian life. This is 
what Paul insisted upon when he said, 
"Therefore leaving the principles of the 
doctrines of Christ, let us go on to per- 
fection" — maturity, the end of God's in- 
finite grace, which is perfect love. Per- 



Steps of Acceptance. 93 

feet love, attained by faith and consecra- 
tion, implies two things: negatively, the 
absence of sin from the Christian, purity 
of heart, spirit, and intentions; postively, 
the "loving God with all the heart, soul, 
mind, and strength, and loving our neigh- 
bor as ourselves/' In other words, it is 
God, in his essential and infinite nature, 
coming to the redeemed soul and filling 
it with himself so that the consecrated 
soul abides joyfully in the ocean of in- 
finite love. 

"God is love; and he that dwelleth in 
love dwelleth in God, and God in him." 
The characteristics of this higher attain- 
able life are "the fruits of the Spirit, which 
are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentle- 
ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
ance." Unless these fruits are exhibited 
in life and conduct by a constant accept- 
ance of the fullness of Christ's redemption 



94 Steps to Salvation. 

and abiding in God's love, the life of sanc- 
tification had better not be professed. It 
is better and safer to sit at the feet of 
Jesus, seeking it with hunger and thirst, 
for he will sometime fill us when the con- 
secration is complete. 

But can this higher life of perfect love 
be attained and lived now and here in 
this world of sin and strife? Most as- 
suredly. It may come instantaneously, by 
the perfect faith and consecration of the 
seeker, through the fire of the Holy Spirit, 
or it may come by years of growth in 
grace as God leads the way to the perfect 
consecration. 

When attained, it is one and the same 
in its blessed experiences, and to quarrel 
and abuse men about the how and the when 
is to assert littleness and narrowness in 
the face of God's infinite grace and meth- 
ods of developing the higher life in his 



Steps of Acceptance. 95 

children. Will this blessing keep men 
from sin? Most postively. How? By 
the same method of faith that we attained 
new life and fullness of spiritual manhood 
in Jesus Christ. We have not forfeited 
our free moral agency nor power to com- 
mit sin, nor has God taken men in this 
higher life beyond temptation and the evil 
that surrounds them. By faith and con- 
secration men live above sin, and keep the 
"body of death under/' the old man cruci- 
fied, so that the Christian life is one of 
continuous victory, not of common defeat 
and occasional triumph, but fullness of 
spiritual life. This is the teaching of the 
New Testament, realized in the life and 
statements of St. Paul, enforced by the 
theology of John Wesley, and lived by 
many Christians. In the Keswick creed 
of entire sanctification we have the truth 
as to the holiness and soul-surrender God 



96 Steps to Saltation. 

requires of the perfect Christian. The 
Rev. F. B. Meyer, who is a true exponent 
of this higher life, says, "On this platform 
we never say self is dead; were we to do 
so, self would be laughing at us round the 
corner." The teaching of Romans vi is 
not that self is dead, but that the renewed 
will is dead to self, the renewed man's 
will saying "Yes" to Christ, and "No" to 
self; through the Spirit's grace it con- 
stantly repudiates, weakens, and mortifies 
the power of the flesh. This statement is 
in harmony with common sense, and is true 
in every sincere soul's experience who at- 
tains and lives the higher life. The eradi- 
cation theory of "inbred sin" is an imper- 
fect view of Scriptural truth and of hu- 
man nature, and belongs to a spurious 
sanctification, as is evidenced by the fall 
and gross sins of some of its advocates, 
who are harmful teachers. 



Steps of Acceptance. 97 

The Church needs the holiness of a per- 
fect faith and love. Thus men are con- 
querors over sin, and have complete vic- 
tory over every temptation as it arises, 
from within or without. 

Thus, where "sin abounded, grace does 
much more abound." Through faith in 
Jesus and the consecration of self as a 
temple of the Holy Ghost, God gives us 
the higher life, which is humble, sweet in 
spirit, and most positive in exalting the 
cross of Christ as an impassable barrier 
between men and sin. It is the life of 
obedience to the Christ Spirit of confidence 
and love. St. John says, "Whoso keepeth 
his word, verily in him is the love of God 
perfected." 

Two other essential doctrines, which are 

the seal and proof of all others, ought to 

be briefly stated. They are steps in the 

knowledge and experience of redemption 
7 



98 Steps to Salvation. 

which modern conditions demand should 
be enforced in the teaching of the gospel 
with all the positiveness of Christ's Ser- 
mon on the Mount. These experiences 
are the noonday splendor of the soul that 
surrenders to the Divine will, rests in 
promises of the Holy Word, and enjoys 
communion and friendship with the Father 
through Jesus Christ. 



THE HOLY FIKE. 

The symbol of the Divine presence and 
power of God with men is the holy fire. 
This manifestation consumed Abel's offer- 
ing in token of his gracious acceptance. 
This power fell from the skies and gave 
Elijah victory for true religion in his con- 
test with the prophets of Baal. "The live 
coal" from the altar that touched Isaiah's 
lips was God's fire that purifies for service 
and makes the message glow with spirit- 
ual power. The heavenly light that filled 
Solomon's temple at its dedication was 
God's acceptance of a gift, consecrated, 
pure, and unselfish; type of a spiritual 
temple which is to become the permanent 
home of the Holy Ghost when the full- 

LofC. " 



100 Steps to Salvation. 

ness of his dispensation has been perfected 
by the mediatorial sacrifice of God's Son. 

So the ages wait for the holy fire. The 
last prophet said: "He is like a refiner's 
fire. He shall sit as a refiner and purifier 
of silver ; he shall purify the sons of Levi, 
and purge them as gold and silver, that 
they may offer unto the Lord an offering 
in righteousness." 

When the forerunner of the Messiah, 
John the Baptist, looked upon the match- 
less Son of God, and Teacher of the Ages, 
he said, "Behold the Lamb of God that 
taketh aw ay the sin of the world ; he shall 
baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with 
fire." 

The " day of Pentecost" ushers in this 
baptism of fire as the new and final instru- 
ment of spiritual power, superseding and 
abolishing all other symbols of God's pres- 
ence, because they waxed old and were 



The Holy Fire. 101 

ready to vanish away in the more brilliant 
light of the "Sun of righteousness." This 
symbol of a "Pentecost," which Jesus says 
must come to all, both individual and 
Church, who enter into eternal life, is evi- 
denced by "a tongue of fire," nay, more, 
"cloven tongues of fire." JSTo explanation 
of this marvelous symbol can excel that 
of William Arthur in his "Tongue of 
Fire," who says: "The symbol is a tongue, 
the only instrument of the grandest war 
ever waged ; a tongue — man's speech to his 
fellow-man ; a message in human words to 
human faculties, from the understanding 
to the understanding, from the heart to the 
heart. A tongue of fire — man's voice, 
God's truth; man's speech, the Holy 
Spirit's inspiration; a human organ, a su- 
perhuman power; not one tongue, but 
'cloven tongues/ as the speech of man is 
various, here we see the Creator taking to 



102 Steps to Salvation. 

himself the language of every man's 
mother ; so that in the very words he heard 
her say, 'I love thee/ he might also hear 
the Father of all say, 'I love thee/ " 

This symbol, then, of the holy fire, 
which is the great essential of the Church's 
power, says that the holy fire is not in 
things, but in persons, for only persons 
have tongues to voice God's messages of 
love and life. The holy fire can not be 
put into a book, not in a written sermon. 
The holy fire glows only in the individ- 
ual who is back of book and sermon. The 
holy fire is not in the Bible as a mechan- 
ical production. If so, a shipload of 
Bibles might be sent to China, and thus 
end the whole missionary business. The 
holy fire only expresses the glow of power 
through persons whose faculties are 
anointed for service. 

The important fact of this great essen- 



The Holy Fire. 103 

tial of spiritual life; the fact which both 
the individual and the Church must hear 
and obey, is the condition of this magnetic 
anointing of power for service. When the 
condition is met, the holy fire glows in 
persons, and the kingdom of Jesus Christ 
expands through the shouts and testimonies 
of new converts. 

The conditions are three, and simple: 

1. This glow of holy fire and baptism 
of power is conditioned upon the perfect 
and full consecration of the individual — 
all powers of body, mind, and spirit turned 
over to God and offered for service. Self- 
ishness is crucified and dares not enter this 
covenant of grace. The person so fully 
surrenders to God that his consecrated 
powers shout with Paul, "What, know ye 
not that your body is the temple of the 
Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have 



104 Steps to Salvation. 

of God, and ye are not your own ? For ye 
are bought with a price ; therefore glorify 
God in your body and in your spirit, which 
are God's." 

2. Purity through "the blood of the 
everlasting covenant" is before the glow 
of the holy fire. When the atonement of 
Jesus Christ is absolutely accepted by faith 
in all its fullness and cleansing, then 

"The Spirit answers to the blood, 
And tells me I am born of God." 

Then the holy fire burns while he blesses ; 
and more, he burns in order to bless with 
sweeter and cleaner spiritual life. 

3. The use of powers already conse- 
crated, illuminated, and put at the Mas- 
ter's service. Activity marks the com- 
munication of holy energy to the soul. It 
is an inexorable law in the spiritual domain 
that God multiplies that which is scat- 
tered abroad, and diminishes that which is 



The Holy Fire. 105 

withheld. Many men and women are de- 
ficient in spiritual power, because they will 
not use what God has already given, and 
hence they can not be trusted with fur- 
ther, or fuller, power. The disciples were 
in place for service when Pentecost came. 
It always has been and always will be so. 
Therefore by perfect consecration, full 
redemption through the blood of Christ, 
and by an activity of service, men and 
women receive the Holy Ghost as prom- 
ised, and are filled with "power from on 
high." Any leanness of soul, or indiffer- 
ence of life is due to the person's failure to 
meet the conditions of the Spirit-filled and 
fire-anointed life, which is "hid with Christ 
in God." The constant prayer should be: 

" Refining fire, go through my heart, 
Illuminate my soul ; 
Scatter thy life through every part, 
And sanctify the whole.' ' 



106 Steps to Salvation. 

Thus the Holy Ghost is the essential of 
the Christian life. A Spirit-filled man can 
not be indifferent and inactive. On the 
contrary, he will be fearless and aggressive 
in establishing the kingdom of God among 
men. The holy fire that glows in him will 
be irresistible, and the power of God unto 
the salvation of other men. 

The Spirit-filled life of men and women, 
and the baptism of holy fire, is the essen- 
tial of the Forward Movement, and the in- 
dispensable of two million converts during 
the first year of the twentieth century. 

The holy fire, like electricity, must have 
a medium of communication in order to 
bless the world. That medium is redeemed 
men and women. Why God ordained it so 
in his Divine economy can not be stated; 
but the fact is apparent in all the history 
of the Church, and realized to-day as the 
power of all soul-winners. Such is God's 



The Holy Fire. 107 

record of spiritual victory. "Not by might 
nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the 
Lord of hosts." 

O, brother man, receive the Word, ac- 
cept the essential doctrines of God's truth 
which set men free, and throw open the 
windows of your soul, and say, "Infinite 
Light, come in and fill me as the temple of 
thy power and love." 

" that in me the sacred fire 
Might now begin to glow, 
Burn up the dross of base desire, 
And make the mountains flow ! 

that it now from heaven might fall, 

And all my sins consume ! 
Come, Holy Ghost, for thee I call ; 

Spirit of burning, come!" 



THE SOUL'S VISION— EXPERIENCE 

The crowning essential doctrine in the 
Steps of Salvation, the seal of all the 
others, is the soul's vision of a personal 
Christ. This experience is the ultimate 
evidence of all Scripture truth, the joy of 
redemption, and is the result of the witness 
of the Holy Spirit. This is the distinguish- 
ing fact of the Christian religion, which 
lifts the w r hole of it out of human phil- 
osophy and speculation into the realm of 
Christian consciousness, from which there 
is no appeal. Men do not doubt each 
other's experiences, and believe that which 
is felt and realized in the soul's communion 
with the Father through the assurance of 
the Holy Ghost. It is the seal of Adop- 
tion; and is a Divine act, whereby man, 

108 



The Soul's Vision — Experience. 109 

who was alienated and disinherited, is, 
upon forgiveness of his sins and cleansing 
of his heart by the new birth, made a son 
of God, adopted into his family, and con- 
stituted an heir of eternal glory. "God 
sent forth his Son to redeem them that 
were under the law, that he might receive 
the adoption of sons. x\nd because ye are 
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, 
Father." Thus the direct witness of the 
Holy Spirit gives the soul a vision of a per- 
sonal Christ, and attests the glorious fact 
of sonship. Paul states this experience as 
a joint act of spiritual revelation, and the 
opened eyes of the soul, when he says, 
"The Spirit himself beareth witness with 
our spirits, that we are the children of 
God." 

Therefore the Pentecost was the crown- 
ing miracle of Christ's crucifixion, resur- 



110 Steps to Saltation. 

rection, and ascension. Spirit-filled men 
and women became his exponents and wit- 
nesses in the world, with a power of testi- 
mony, as seen in Peter after his personal 
vision of the risen Christ at the sea of 
Galilee, and the enduement of grower from 
on high. Jesns delighted in this ultimate 
authority and experience, and felt no fear 
about the final victory of his kingdom of 
righteousness. It was his promise, "Ye 
shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
make you free," and "He whom the Son 
makes free is free indeed." 

This doctrine of adoption, assurance, 
and liberty, as revealed to human souls by 
the Holy Ghost, Christians must not cease 
to preach, enjoy, and enforce by a holy 
life, if they are to save sincere thinkers 
after the truth from the vagaries of Chris- 
tian Science and other isms of misguided 
bigots. 



The Soul' s Vision — Experience. Ill 

A Unitarian was once present at a re- 
vival service, and was invited to go forward 
to the altar under this test of experience. 
"But," said he, "I do not believe in Christ 
as Divine." It was suggested that he 
should test Christ by prayer. He went to 
the altar a sincere seeker after the truth, 
and poured out this simple but compre- 
hensive prayer, "O Christ, if thou be God, 
reveal thyself to my soul!" He had not 
prayed long ere he sprang to his feet with 
new convictions, exclaiming, "He is God! 
He is God!" That soul- vision was ever 
afterward freedom and power to that man. 
This soul-vision of Christ, this "seal of the 
covenant," is the Church's source of 
power, and the citadel of the ultimate 
truth. When Dr. Lyman Beecher was on 
a dying bed a ministerial brother said to 
him, "Dr. Beecher, you know a great deal ; 
tell us what is the greatest of all things." 



112 Steps to Salvation. 

He replied, "It is not theology, it is not 
controversy ; it is to save souls with a per- 
sonal Christ." 

The object of salvation is to make men 
and women ambassadors of Christ, and co- 
workers with God. No man retains this 
new joy and "more abundant life" who 
does not become a soul-winner, and an 
"epistle" of love, "known and read of 
men." Therefore, Paul said of Christians : 
"Ye are God's fellow-workers: ye are 
God's arable field: ye are God's building," 
erected to show forth the power of the 
divine life in the souls of men. 



Jte^an > a 5 1903 



NOV 4 1901 



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